Errors By Bloggers Kill Credibility & Traffic, Study Finds
Blogging is fast, informal and easy to do. Spelling, grammar and factual errors happen - but do they make a material impact on the success of a blogger? A small but interesting survey run by crowdsourced copy editing service GooseGrade concludes that they do.
Approximately 200 respondents told GooseGrade that while blogs aren't a major source of news for most of them, they often find errors on blogs and that makes them less likely to share the content they find there with other readers. While unsurprising, these numbers are a good illustration of just how much things have changed in media - or not.
The Details
The company asked a demographically diverse group of respondents on Amazon's Mechanical Turk website to fill out the survey and published the results today on the GooseGrade company blog. The bulk of respondents spent some time reading blogs but were people who remained dependent on "mainstream sources" for most of their news.
We thought that the most interesting findings were these:
- Spelling and grammatical errors harmed a reader's opinion of a blog, their willingness to spend time on the site and to share its content nearly as much as perceived factual errors did.
- Respondents believe that spelling, grammar and factual errors on blogs are common. Only 20% of respondents said that it was "not often" or "never" that they found such errors.
Good writing is a rare skill, though it often goes unnoticed when it produces easily read text. Bad writing is very, very common and if you're someone who finds it distracting - you're not alone. Many of us fluctuate somewhere in between, but this study is another reminder that it's not a casual matter if we wish to communicate effectively. If you're response is that this study is over exagerating it's conclusions - then your probly not paying attention. (Ha!)
Below are a few of the charts, you can see the rest on the GooseGrade blog. The lesson here? It seems pretty clear. We bloggers are harming our own credibility and traffic with our inattention to details, not just in the facts, but in the basics of our writing. Let's do better!
Well Spelled Charts
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GOOD, I've heard from too many people who think we shouldn't care about spelling and grammar. I'm glad to know that they aren't in the majority, even if they are loud.
It's great that people are now looking at how the quality of the writing really allows readers to engage with a blog. Some top bloggers are good writers but behind every good writer is a great editor. I know I have one. Unfortunately they only edit my blog posts, not my comments.
Uh... surely we didn't need a survey to point out those rather basic facts?
I wouldn't share something that's got spelling errors or egregious grammar errors not only because of the "if they don't care, why should I" issue, but because what I share reflects on me. If I share a post riddled with errors that means I either didn't notice them or didn't care. I *might* share something like that with close friends in email where I can preface my link with some disclaimer... but I'd not share it in Google Reader, twitter, etc.
The worst part is that spelling checkers are everywhere, even inside browsers. Why do these typos end up in blog posts? Carelessness, obviously... And the reader obviously infers that the blogger's information has been researched as carelessly.
I'd love to see this study in 10 years when the tweeners who grew up with text and IM shorthand become professionals. My inkling is that they won't care nearly as much as us folks who remember life before the Internet!
And here is a good source of knowledge for bloggers who wants to improve their style... subscribe and read a section each day... http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org
@Juha, see Kathleen's comment above - lots of people don't believe this yet. Also, as we wrote in the post, even if it's intuitive - these numbers put additional emphasis on making the right decision in a split-second blogging environment.
Rick - isn't that crazy that this is what the world has come to? You have to give some thought to whether you are going to click the little "share" button in Google Reader because the content you share is going to reflect on you? That seems nuts to me, but that's totally how it works!
Jean-Michel - fact is though that even on a long-developed post, you will find errors from even the best writers. It is *so* much easier said than done, even with modern tools. I know because I publish at least one spelling or grammar error every few days - maybe more! I try to catch them, but there are competing priorities and competitive pressures. I've got posts to write right now, in a hurry before I have to stop working for the day, so I hope I've spelled everything correctly an
Actually, I'm a blogger and I use perfect grammar. It helps to have read The Elements of Style (EB White) and On Writing Well (William Zinser)
I think what really kills blogging is the advertising that people put up for SEO. I mean you get links like
http://sammyliu.com/rankmaniac
...all the time.
I guess its just nature.
For writing learnin' I'm interested in reading http://www.copyblogger.com/
@Marshall: Of course, the occasional typo is perfectly understandable, especially when you aim to be the first blog to deliver the news, a service that is probably even more valuable to the reader. I read ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch with some regularity, and I certainly place them in the category of readable and trustworthy blogs (albeit not 100% foolproof... who is?). Cheers!
Marshall,
It took me a long time to realize that not everyone has the grasp of spelling and grammar that the nuns beat into me in elementary school :) I feel lucky that for me, spelling and grammar seems reflexive, although I still run everything through the spellchecker.
I do think that I view a post or article in which there are misspellings or homonyms as suspect, and I think potential employers and others think likewise. I wrote two posts on this topic (and really sweated it that I might have made a mistake in these posts!) on knowing when to use its and it's and knowing the difference between your and you're.
Here they are:
Its and It's: http://tinyurl.com/6s6zob
Your and You're: http://tinyurl.com/6kh2np
Great post!
Mary Pat
Um, talking about credibility, this study was conducted by a "copy editing" service. What do you think they are going to find?
Posted by: Erick Schonfeld
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October 30, 2008 7:17 PM
Thanks for the comment, Mary. "spelling and grammar" is a plural phrase though and you followed it with the singular word "seems" instead of the more correct "seem." That's how it struck me, but then I've kinda got something against nuns anyway. :) Used to live next door to a rock band made up of nuns.
Erick, you can see the questions asked and the sample set was from Amazon Turk, so it seems pretty legit as lightweight anecdotal stuff goes. Calling this tiny startup a "service" may be overstating it too, it's like a couple of cats in their bedrooms building on a cool idea. I think their doing a survey is a great idea and found the results interesting. Besides, who funds studies that doesn't have an interest in the topic? That's reason to be suspect but not sufficient reason to reject it I think.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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October 30, 2008 7:26 PM
Maybe you were just goofing around though and I took your comment way too seriously :) We need a service that crowdsources humor detection in web content. Seriously.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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October 30, 2008 7:27 PM
I saw an earlier blog post about VentureDig. A site that went live today. I think blogs will be heading in a different direction. There will be many forms and types of blogs.
For instance, VentureDig is a micro-blog with purpose. It's twitter, entrepreneurship and venture capital all rolled into one.
Here's a link for anyone interested: http://venturedig.com
Nice post!
In India, 20 years ago, you(..I) got rapped on your(er...my) knuckles with a tiny wooden ruler for every 5 misspelled words in an essay.
Oh and my piano teacher did exactly the same thing when I bent my wrist while playing.
So, many sore knuckles later, I totally appreeeeshiaaatee the valoo of this posht. Eshpeshully given that sumtimes people say that I'm a touch too anal about spelling.
Ill-formatted/disorganized writing comes in a close second. Don't you just hate it when folks write out 15 different thoughts in a single paragraph, with no indentation?
I do think that spelling and grammar mistakes should be checked one or two times before posting these spelling checkers in Blog editors like Live writer makes our job much easy.
Another issue is the insta-"post to microformat" modules that send your (potentially not-quite-edited-to-perfection) blog posts into the public eye before you maybe wanted them to go. I thought it was a total boon to have such integration, but now I know to disable it 9 times out of 10.
Re: Gen Y - recalls the old saw: "Four years ago I didn't know what an engineer was. Now I are one." ;-)
See what I mean about sweatin' it?!! Dang!
@ Danny
Shouldn't it be 'I guess it's just nature'- the 'its' with the apostrophe? Talk about perfect grammar.
hahaha. i have to agree with Erik. a Copy Editing sponsored study on this produces results that favor copy editing?
This is a as credible as those tobacco sponsored studies that say smoking is not bad if you only smoke casually.
It is funny because the TOP BLOGS in all the world like Gizmodo, Engadget and others are full of bias, lazy researched posts, bad spelling and bad grammar. yet they are the TOP BLOGS!!!!!!
You can read comments from their readers telling them of it every single day. yet the readers never go away. why?. because you would have a hard time replacing those blogs. for that you would need to follow 3 to 5 blogs in order to get as much content as what Engadget or Gizmodo puts outs.
The truth of the matter is that for a blog to be a big hit only needs very regular content and be mildly good, fun or interesting. another example is that the best written blogs are small and never get to grow much. This was actually confirmed in the latest State of the Blogosphere from Technorati and the inflammatory and noisy piece from Wired about Blogging.
My point was merely on the content on the "to be a big hit". then it of course comes to also having good PR, good financial backing, good seo, good design, good auto promotion. just to make myself clear on that.
@Avatar You can view the RAW survey data@ http://www.goosegrade.com/reader-perception-survey-results there's a link to excel file right on the page.
Like the article says we posted the survey on mechanical turk and these are the results we received. I can provide the HIT details if you would like. I don't believe in gain with dishonest means ,gooseGrade is about fact checking and accuracy. We wouldn't get far rigging things like this not with our audience.
Just because popular blogs make mistakes that doesn't make it ok. Maybe those mistakes are stopping them from reaching an even higher level? What we saw is that mistakes could be what's stopping some people, such as print readers, from reading new media.
The argument is that while new media is successful it could reach a much higher audience with just a small effort to fix a few things.
Sincerely,
John Brooks Pounders
gooseGrade.com
I know that Im a horrible speller.
I often do mistakes, but what can I do but use the auto tools when i make posts? I dont see the errors myself
@Avatar: You may be right about the top blogs, but do people actually read them, or just scan them? I have Engadget in my RSS feeds just to quickly scan the articles' titles, then the pictures if it sounds interesting, and finally the product's link if it sounds really interesting. I cannot remember the last time I actually read one of their articles in full: two years ago, maybe? Look at Gizmodo's commenters and you will see that it is always the same group of people. So I would argue that there is a difference between a blog (opinion) and a "feed" (information). In a feed, I only care about staying on top of the latest product introductions while wasting as little time as possible. Of course, YMMV, and some people might consider Engadget to be a blog rather than a feed, for their own purpose. One of the reasons why the top blogs may be so popular also is because a lot of younger people read them (that is why the typos do not matter much and the humor is often juvenile, a bit on purpose, which does not bother me one bit, by the way), whereas these kids do not really care about more "professional" content (yet), like what you would find on ReadWriteWeb, for instance.
My friend and I have been playing with a tool to help fix this problem as well. It is only a weekend project though, so I'm glad these guys are going after this problem more formally/ aggressively.
Good work gG!
P.S. I'm normally a critical jerk :)
I have to agree with the study. There is one blog that is read by an awful lot of people. Even Google has it as a lead blog by their own employees. Unfortunately, the blog routinely has grammar and spelling errors. In fact, I'd say there are at least three errors per post. Because they don't seem to care about it, I refuse to share it with anyone. It really COULD be the coolest blog on the net, but because they have such a disrespect for English, I choose not to advertise for them.
I'm not saying that's it's not okay to make a mistake. That's not what I mean at all. Mistakes do and will happen. It's the continuous mistakes that are bad, and the blasé attitude that comes with it.
I'm no English major myself, and I make plenty of errors. However I'm not getting paid to write either. Enough said.
Now it's available to all users in English. We'll keep you updated about when we launch it in Blogger's other languages.
Blogger Following for All !!
@John:
You don`t need to rig anything. i am not accusing goose grade of doing so either. i like the idea of gooseGrade and welcome it (would totally use it). but it is a proven fact that a organization should only cite third party studies where they didn`t had anything at all with the study. so they can be truly reliable. my criticism in on the study itself.
That is why when you test a drug or a food product the brand involved in making the product needs to subject to other studies but their own and a expert reviewing board to give validity to it without intervention.
I will not discuss on the blogosphere matter since i have pretty much actively studied this for the last 5 years. it is not just a guess. i avoid mentioning other blogs that do long form posts to avoid controversy and flaming.
@Jean-Michel Decombe:
I picked up engadget and gizmodo because they are the most glaring example and precisely because they are infoblogs. but i got plenty of examples of blogs that do long form posts with the very same problems. i don`t name them because i want to avoid to look like i am flaming them. some of these blogs are around readwriteweb size but most of them are all bigger than RWW. so i know why i say it. as i said to John. so i am not guessing. this is all factual and researched i assure you.
I also find weird that you say you have not read a post in there for awhile. but this actually validates even more my claim. Engadget and Gizmodo reach is so pervasive that even people that don`t read their post are subcribed to it.
Following is gooseGrade's abstract introducing the results of their study. I've made several corrections (original in bold italic) to grammar and spelling.
@Evano
The abstract is something I typed up and proves why I need gooseGrade. My grammar is terrible ;)
I've corrected the errors you pointed out and please note that the odd capitalization of "gooseGrade" is on purpose and part of our branding.
Thanks for the great analysis,
JB
I love how this post generates so many comments. It shows that more people care about language than we may think.
I'll forgive typos and a few spelling mistakes. But not if it becomes too distracting. I've given up reading a few blogs because of too many errors. And that's a shame -- they were informative but badly written.
@Danny:
Oh really? Nice run-on sentence, the mis-use of italics in book titles, and the wrong use of its (vs. it's).
Nicely done.
I'll assume you were going for sarcasm rather than just being too smug for your own good.
Excellent posting...
Keep up the great work!!!